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Cursing the end of cursive?

Lately, I’ve been seeing these memes: “Please share if you believe schools should teach cursive.” I started to give it some serious thought.

Learning cursive was torture for me. My B’s never looked like B’s and the humps of my M’s and N’s were always confused. Heaven forbid I ever had to write a capital Q – I had no real control over all those curlicues.

I have always been jealous of people with beautiful handwriting.

Recently, an invitation arrived in the mail and I spent 10 minutes just marveling at the handwriting.

How could anyone be so perfect. It was like looking at those cards that were posted above the chalkboard with little arrows demonstrating which way to drag your pen to get the perfect form.

I worry about those people – are they high-strung, living on the edge. The vast majority of us have lousy handwriting. And our signatures are nearly illegible.

Most doctors require you to sign in before an appointment, have you ever looked at the list of names? (Don’t lie, you know you have.)

At the store or the gas station, you often have to sign your name with that stupid pen, which is little more than a stick. What a fiasco. Half the time the thing doesn’t work the other half the screen doesn’t work. And yet, I’ve never seen anyone turned down for an illegible signature?

Couple of weeks ago, when my signature was requested, I signed “Her Majesty the Queen.”

Not that you could tell.

You do need cursive to sign paper checks, but how many checks do you write a year? Most places prefer you pay digitally – no signing needed.

When my children were small I used to tell them that a formal document requires a formal signature and that printing a name in block letters isn’t formal.

Obviously, some folks are taking this cursive question very seriously.

In Arizona, Sen. Gail Griffin (R) introduced a bill that would require students be able to write legibly in cursive by the end of fifth grade.

The Governor, Doug Ducey, vetoed the law, but wrote that he believed the state’s educational standards were requirement enough and that making it law was unnecessary.

In Indiana, Sen. Jean Leising has introduced a bill to make cursive a requirement for five years in a row. Hasn’t happened yet.

Those in favor of continuing to teach cursive say it sparks the brains cognitive centers and that it’s important for enhancing fine motor skills. Researchers found that students who took notes by hand scored better on tests than students who used a computer for note-taking.

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I taught cursive and third graders were excited to learn it. Somehow it made
Them feel on their way to being grown up. But I felt bad for the ones who
Had so much trouble learning it. That was several years ago. Kids today are more interested in learning the misspelling of texts.
My son was valedictorian of his high school, and I could barely make out the speech he wrote. Today he is a published author, no thanks to cursive.
With technology like it is and will be, I see no reason to teach it. If a child wants to learn it, he or she can master it on their own.

Learning and practicing cursive writing does not only improve fine motor skills, it helps to teach some of the disciplines necessary in education. Disciplines that are part of the foundation of a good education. Learning to print is part of the footing under the foundation and we don’t even require that to be done well anymore.

It tried to sign my name with one of the sticks you referred to at a restaurant. No matter how I tried it would not work. When I told the cashier it would not write, she told me to just get it to make a mark and it will take it. So my signature looked like a dash. She said that was fine. No need for cursive after all!

My job is reading and scoring essays in state standardized tests. Over the decades, I have read hundreds of thousands of essays in bad handwriting. My colleagues and I love the fact that, now, many of the essays come typed, rather than written.

Cursive writing is much less important than typing. The kids should learn to type. The only reason to learn cursive writing is to be able to read it.

That said, I, an old goat, have gone back to cursive recently, because I have missed it, and because it expresses personality. My own cursive looks much better in pencil as opposed to pen. So, I am going back to pencils too. I may be regressing to third grade. Oy!

Oy indeed. But your point is valid – I can’t imagine how hard it was to read some of those essays and I apologize if one of mine was part of the headache. I love good cursive, but I believe it’s going the way of inkwells.

I could print as perfect as this font when we moved in the middle of second grade. We were up to MNO caps and hadn’t even started lower case cursive but at my new school all assignments had to be in cursive, I learned to write legibly enough quick. When signing my name once this girl said, “Oh how cute, your first name is Love”.

Learning to write cursive in two weeks at age 7 wasn’t a big problem for me, going from top of my class to not being able to read the teacher’s writing on the blackboard was. Nobody realized I was nearsighted until three years later, squinting while trying to decipher all those squiggly lines probably didn’t help.
I could read and write (print) before kindergarten. I think cursive writing should still be mandatory in school as you never know where you may encounter it or some other strange fonts. Make it a hybrid class as it is an art. Grade it by how well you can read other’s scribbles, extra points if others can read yours easily.

Being someone with very lovely handwriting, I appreciate cursive writing. I believe they should still teach it – not that it requires a grade – just a part of the curriculum. If you suck at it, no worries. But it should still be taught. Just like spelling. Even with spell check, it’s good to know how to spell. It’s not a huge deal. Just a good thing to know.

I am envious of your lovely handwriting. The idea of educational administrators agreeing to time spent on something that doesn’t offer a grade seems unlikely. Also, spellcheck is unreliable. I can’t imagine the world without spelling, but then I’m having a hard time thinking about a world without cursive, so what do I know.

I love cursive writing. It’s almost like the wrapping on the gift of a personal note or letter.
I think it still should be taught in schools; we could call it an art form. If we give up cursive, it should be replaced with more grammar, more spelling, and bringing phonics back.

Cha-ching!! Those of us who know how to write cursively now have a money-making skill. Imagine, Hollywood auditioning for people who can write when they do close ups of someone’s hand writing. Makes up for all those hours we gave practicing it. The pen would truly become mightier than the sword because it would be worth more! I jest….

As a “leftie” who had to have after-school lessons to learn to write cursive, I support continuing to teach it even if it’s hard. After high school graduation I was embarrassed about my poor writing and took a night class to improve it. Appearance counts and I took pride in the hard efforts I made to have beautiful handwriting. Today my writing has suffered due to mini-strokes, but is still quite presentable.

I so admire that you took extra effort to improve your handwriting. Certainly it should not be dismissed from schools simply because it’s hard, but I wonder if it will be necessary in the future? Or are we headed away from cursive entirely.

I just wanted to let you know how much I enjoy your columns. I lived in Flint for about 20 years. Always took the Flint Journal for yours and Andrew Hellers columns. Have your books also. Life went on, after moving up North where I came from finally got the paper again ( this time on the computer ) but found even though Andys was still there, yours wasn’t. Then Andy was gone and lo and behold I found this website with both of you on it YAY! Now I’m actually thinking about cancelling the paper, but do like to keep up with the news so still thinking. Anyway, wanted to say hang in there and keep writing!

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Andrew Heller has been an enduringly popular newspaper columnist in Michigan for a long, long, long time. He wrote his first column for the Escanaba Daily Press way back in 1979. It was about his … Continue Reading

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